


A New American History of Relationships

by DJClawson



Series: Theodore Nelson's Adventures in Sharing a Workspace [12]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Bisexuality, Class Differences, Closeted Character, Drug Addiction, Drugs, Explicit Language, Homophobic Language, Homosexuality, Interalized Misogyny from the Author, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Series, That or Marvel Can't Write Women, Time Skips, Vegetarians & Vegans, You Decide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 12:10:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17745674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/pseuds/DJClawson
Summary: A history of Theo and Ward, in twelve parts.





	A New American History of Relationships

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yutaya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yutaya/gifts), [Nell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nell/gifts).



> Thank you to LachesisMeg for her beta work!
> 
> Trigger warnings for explicit discussion of sex, internalized homophobia, rich people being jerks
> 
> This is filling the following prompts:  
> \- A history of Theo and Ward (and Joy)  
> \- Discussion of class issues
> 
> I have other prompts to fill but I am always interested in requests.
> 
> I scanned the first half of Iron Fist season 2 for this, and intended to finish the series, but I lost a lot of steam. Man, these characters are all either idiots or jerks. (Except for Misty and Colleen, and honestly, Colleen just kinda follows everyone around) This fanfic is not canon compliant because I don't care. This series is also not an OFFICIAL crossover with my "Danny's a Buddhist" series, but there is a lot in common, so it basically could be. 
> 
> And yes, Theo was a _literal_ rocket scientist before working at the butcher shop.

Past

1

They didn’t have sex until their third date. Theo thought this was crazy.

He was out of practice when it came to dating in the conventional sense. Usually he was too rushed, too stressed, or too impaired (with alcohol or otherwise) to think about it. He’d started to think of dating as something teenagers did, or something guys and girls did when they were figuring each other out.

Damn, he was awful.

They met for brunch; they were both free on Sundays. There were mimosas on the menu but neither of them drank. Ward seemed to want to talk. Theo had no idea why he wanted to talk to _him_ , but okay. It was cute. Ward, who clearly did not have many clothes that were not business attire, probably didn’t consider himself ‘cute.’ But he was.

They didn’t make it to the bedroom. To be fair, Ward had a massive apartment with an endless amount of rooms, so it would have been more of a challenge than Theo’s cubbyhole of a studio. If Ward’s game plan had been to drive Theo wild with anticipation - fine. It worked.

“I don’t do anal,” Theo said. “Probably should have told you that before you took me out so many times.”

“It’s fine,” Ward said. “Safeword?”

“‘No,’” Theo said. “I don’t believe in overcomplicating things.”

“Good.”

Afterward they sat on one of those expensive black leather couches only a bachelor would own, the majority of their clothing dispersed on the carpet before them, and Ward said, “You want a beer?”

So he wanted Theo to stay? Great. “Yeah.” When he could put two working brain cells together, he added, “Please.”

Ward brought out two beers from a kitchen that looked like it was never used and clinked the bottles together as he handed one to Theo. “Cheers.”

“ _Slainte_.”

“That’s the Irish one, right?”

“Yeah.”

Ward’s carpet was white and his walls were all white and there were real windows looking out at sky instead of the apartment next door and everything was so bright. There some tiny paintings in expensive frames and a giant black flatscreen mounted on the wall.

Theo drank the whole beer before he said, “Have you ever turned on that TV?”

Ward frowned. “A couple times, I’m sure. I paid someone a lot of money to hook it up.” He looked at Theo. “Do you think I just collect rooms I don’t use?”

“You do work a lot,” Theo replied. “And you are rich.”

Instead of kicking him out, Ward burst into laughter. Theo took that as a good sign.

 

2

He saw Ward twice in the next week. The following, three times. Ward invited him to sleep over, but Theo was nervous about getting to work on time and in the appropriate clothing.

“Please tell me you don’t get animal blood all over the clothes you wear when we meet.”

“What do you think butchers do? You know I don’t work in a slaughterhouse, right? Most of the blood was drained before it was loaded on the truck. And I wear gloves. Health codes and all that.”

Ward took one of Theo’s hands and held it up. Unlike Ward’s, which was smooth and didn’t have so much as a papercut, Theo’s skin was bull of blemishes - scars from burns, scars from slicers, and calluses on his forefingers from holding a heavy knife.

“Doesn’t Anthony Bourdain have a bit about being a good chef means you have terrible hands?” Ward asked. “He makes it sound like you should be missing fingers.”

“I don’t cook as much as a chef. The damage is from flames and boiling liquids - usually frying oil. It always gets everywhere it shouldn’t. But we don’t have that much prepared food on the menu.”

“As opposed to my sissy hands.”

“Don’t use that word,” Theo said, not in a harsh way, though he did mean it. “Your hands are beautiful. And you’ll probably be buried with them looking that nice. I’ve worked while drunk so many times I’m lucky to have hands.”

“You still do that?” Ward sounded alarm.

“Naw, stopped after a year or so. Pop stuck me on the register for my own safety and I screwed up too many orders. Honestly, I don’t know why he didn’t give me more shit about it. Maybe he was just happy I had decided to work there of my own free will.”

“Or he was hiding being plastered from his father,” Ward suggested, “in the long long ago. I assume you’re not the first person in your family to enjoy imbibing alcohol.”

“I don’t want to say I’ve _never_ been sober at a family gathering,” Theo said. “I mean, I used to be a kid. There are limits. But maybe not since then.”

“You don’t give me the impression of someone who doesn’t like being around his family.”

“Yeah, but there’s a lot of them,” Theo said. “And being a little loaded gives me an excuse to not keep them all straight. Only my brother can do that, and he’s a genius. Like a real Mensa member-level of genius. Remembers everything and everyone. Completely worthless behind the counter though.”

“And he’s in law school now?”

Theo nodded.

“That’s a good place for someone who can’t work with his hands.”

Yet Ward wouldn’t let Theo cook. As Ward explained, “You shouldn’t have to work when you’re not at work.” Ward did have a stocked pantry, and some receptionist somewhere whom Theo never actually saw but could get anything delivered at any time. And Ward could boil water, or so he claimed. He didn’t make meals, but they got high a lot, and needed snacks, some of which needed heating, but he insisted that Theo not so much as enter the kitchen. The closest he got was the dining room.

“I can smell you burning stuff!” Theo shouted.

“I haven’t even put anything in yet!” Ward shouted back even though they were about ten feet from each other.

This room also had nothing on its walls except a picture of Ward and his sister, and a glass cabinet full of trophies. “Aren’t those supposed to be in your office?”

“My office is smaller than you’d think,” Ward said. And whatever he had thought about doing with the oven, he’d given up, because he was now hitting the microwave’s noisy buttons. “Are you impressed? Be honest.”

Theo stumbled over and opened the cabinet, pulling out a crystal trophy with Ward’s name engraved in the diamond-shaped piece, which sat mounted on a heavy glass base. “This one - I think it’s like, a thousand?”

“The Landman and Zack Giving Day one? That cost me a lot more than a thousand dollars. I had to sponsor like half the day.”

“No, I mean, that’s what it costs,” Theo said. “I have an uncle who sells these - he used to have a store, now it’s all internet business. It’s a good racket. He buys the raw materials from China, sticks a name on them, and sells them to businesses for a hell of a markup.” He held up the diamond-shaped one. “I have this one.”

“You have it? What do you mean?”

Theo knew it was delicate, so he put it back carefully. “When I was a kid, that was my birthday present from him. He would call up Mom, ask her what I was currently into, and then he would give me a trophy that said something like ‘Best’ whatever. My favorite one says, ‘Theodore Nelson - Best Spaceman 1989.’”

“Your uncle gave you a thousand-dollar trophy?! He should have just given you the money!”

“Naw, it wasn’t worth that,” Theo explained. “When he would do a big order, especially of the crystal and glass ones, one or two would always come with flaws and they would have been scrapped. So there’s an edge missing or a crack somewhere. Not that we cared. I used to bring them in for Show and Tell when people challenged me about my titles.”

“I bet you got your name spelled right, too,” Ward said as he returned with butter-free popcorn. “Do you know how many times I’ve been Wade Meachum?”

Theo couldn’t stop giggling. Ward never tried.

 

3

Ward didn’t drink much, but he did a lot of drugs.

“I’m too much of a WASP to hold my liquor,” he explained.

Theo was fine with being stoned - it described his high school experience - but Ward was basically a pharmacist. He knew what could be combined with what, and what to drink with it to make it go down smoother, and how to achieve the perfect, sublime balance between a low and a high.

“Fuuuuuuck,” Theo said when he finally had the wherewithal to check his phone in the morning. “Fuck, I’m gonna be late.” He barely made it to the bathroom, splashed water on his face, and when that did absolutely nothing, realized he had to call in sick. It took him three tries to find his father's number on the menu and typed that he was sick, and coming in late.

Theo was on the soft carpet outside the bathroom door when his phone rang. “Hello?”

“Are you hungover or sick?” His father did not sound judgmental. “Because if you’re sick, your mom’s coming over with soup.”

He couldn’t let that happen. He wasn’t home and they didn’t know that. “Hungover, Pop. Sorry. I’ll be there by noon.”

“You’re young yet,” was all his father said to that before he hung up.

“Fuck.”

“How did he take it?” Ward asked from the bed.

“Okay. But - no, fuck. I’m still gonna get shit for it.” He closed his eyes. “Whatever I took last night - strike it from the list, okay? I’m not saying it wasn’t amazing. I just can’t do this again.”

Ward didn’t fight him. Ward respected his wishes, whatever they were. Theo did like shrooms, though, and he was experienced enough to know how early he had to take them to be bright and alert in the morning. And Ward got _really_ good shit.

“I think you might do too many drugs.”

“I’m in charge of a pharmaceutical company, so let me say, there’s no such thing as too many drugs.”

“Yeah, but can’t that opioid shit mess you up?” Theo said. “Isn’t that how you make money? Getting everyone addicted?”

“We do other stuff.”

“Like?”

“Proprietary materials which have the potential to develop into patented medication,” Ward said.

“Don’t the patents only last for twenty years?” Theo said. “See? I’m not a dummy.”

“I don’t think you’re a dummy. Trust me, I would not go out with someone who was just another pretty face.”

“What makes you think you could?”

Ward pulled up his shirt. “With these abs?”

“Those aren’t abs. You work out, but it’s cardio. You don’t get abs with cardio,” Theo said. “I have more muscles than you and I’m perpetually malnourished.”

“At least you can admit it.” Ward moved in front of him and cupped his face so they had to make eye contact. “Look, I don’t care you don’t have a fancy degree from an Ivy League school that would have bled your bank account dry with debt, I don’t think a blue collar job in the service industry reflects badly on anyone, and I don’t care that your brother is gonna be the legal Doogie Howser or whatever he’s capable of. You’re a smart guy, and you should know that.”

Theo didn’t know what to do with that, so he looked down. “Okay.”

Ward kissed him. “I mean it.” And since he wouldn’t let go, Theo kissed him back. But it wasn’t the only reason.

 

4

Ward talked about Joy a lot, but Theo didn’t expect to actually meet her - she had a _townhouse,_ Theo thought those had all been turned into museums - until she showed up announced on a Saturday afternoon to talk contracts. Fortunately, nothing embarrassing was going on at the time - Ward had moved his Wii into their preferred living room so they could play on that particular big screen - and Ward flipped into the mode of an executive immediately, which meant he was kind of an asshole, if not overtly to his sister. He did try to stop her in the foyer and say he was busy, but she didn’t listen, and she paced until they were in the living room.

“Joy, have some respect,” Ward said. “Joy, this is Ted. Ted, this is my sister Joy.”

“Hey,” Theo said, wishing he could sink into the couch and disappear.

“Hi,” Joy said, then completely refocused on Ward and continued a very technical contract discussion that battered against Ward’s obvious growing impatience. Theo had never heard siblings who loved each other speak to each other like that except on TV, and for that and other reasons he slunk off, put his shoes on, and left, despite Ward’s insistence that he didn’t have to go. Ward called him twenty minutes later and tried to get him back.

“No, you have your family shit. I don’t want to intrude,” Theo said. He could hardly complain - Ward understood that he couldn’t come within a 5-block radius of the deli or Theo would freak the fuck out and hide under the counter until he was gone, and that was on Theo, and Ward was kind enough to respect it. “Don’t be mad at your sister. It’s not good to be mad at your sister.”

Ward sighed and said, “Okay.”

Theo got a text from an unknown contact. It was Joy, apologizing profusely, which Theo immediately accepted and tried to brush off.

It was about two weeks before he saw her again. It was Sunday, he was a little stoned, and in more or less the same position as her last visit. Ward had been called out to deal with some emergency from a number he always immediately answered but never spent much time on the phone with. He said he couldn’t talk about it and Theo understood boundaries. Joy even had her own key, so Theo didn’t have much reaction time.

“Hi,” she said, standing in the doorway, still holding her coat. As if Ward didn’t have a whole coat room. “I know Ward isn’t here. I wanted to apologize in person.”

“You don’t have to,” Theo said. “I accepted your apology.”

“I still do. Want to apologize, I mean. I shouldn’t have treated you like that. I’m not used to - well, it’s not important what I’m not used to.” She was very professional, which was not surprising in the least. It was also a little inhuman.

“Do you want a beer?” Theo asked. “Or that bottle of pinot Ward has? I think it’s for you because he never drinks it and he doesn’t have anyone else here.”

Her face brightened just a little - maybe not at the prospect of alcohol, though that would probably make the situation easier, but that Ward had something that was clearly intended for her at hand. Maybe she had never been here before - or stayed long enough to eat or drink. “Yes, actually. It’s late enough in the day, I guess.”

“It’s good for your heart,” Theo said. He guessed that he was more capable of finding the bottle opener, so he went to the kitchen for her, and she followed, putting her coat down on the way.

“That’s red wine.”

“Now they think white is about the same in that respect. I mean, it’s still alcohol. It might just be some wine industry bullshit.” It occurred to him that maybe he should at least try to stop cursing around her, but wasn’t that not very feminist, to act differently around her because of her gender? “Do you want food? There is a lot of food, and it’s all organic so it’s going to go bad before we can eat it all anyway.”

“That’s fine, thanks.” She accepted the wine, but very tepidly.

Theo wondered who was more terrified of this going wrong. He opened a beer for himself, because why not?

“I haven’t met any of my brother’s - romantic partners. Except by accident. Not because he was hiding them, just because - he’s my brother?”

“And you don’t want to know,” Theo said. “My brother doesn’t even know I _do_ date.” He could not imagine Foggy bringing a girl home and saying, ‘This is the woman I want to marry.’ He could only kind of imagine Foggy doing it with Matt, but he didn’t think that was going to happen. Their parents couldn’t strike out twice. “It’s fine. It really is.”

“He talks about you,” she said, very unsure if she should have admitted that. “He really likes you. He was mad at me about the other day.”

“I told him not to be.”

“He’s Ward. He was anyway. And I deserved a little of it.” She held the stem of the glass with her immaculate nails. “I’m just looking out for him. Ever since Dad died, he’s had to be basically the man of the family, and the head of Rand, and he won’t admit it, but I think he hates it there.” Theo did not enlighten her on this matter, and she continued, “A lot of other things get shoved to the side. And he’s rich, so people try to take advantage of him.”

“I’m not after his money,” Theo said. And he wasn’t sure how she imagined he would get it, anyway.

“I take it he didn’t buy you that watch,” she said. She didn’t point to the plastic Casio watch - with calculator - which had been the greatest thing he had ever gotten for his birthday at the time, back in grade in school. “He says you won’t let him spend money on you.”

“I don’t need money,” Theo said. “I don’t really need a lot of things.” It wasn’t totally a lie. He was salaried at work, so however the shop was doing, he made the same money, but he also knew how often it was in the red. But if the worst happened, he would deal with it. His apartment was rent-controlled, he didn’t need a car, and he had occupational skills. He was more worried what it would do to his parents, which was why he put in any hours he had to to keep it afloat.

“Everyone needs money,” Joy said.

“I don’t need a lot of money,” Theo clarified. “And I don’t need your brother’s money. That’s not what this is.” He’d said no to Ward because even though that wasn’t how Ward intended the gesture, it made Theo feel cheap. Dirty, even. He knew people with relationships like that. He could imagine Ward getting into one of those relationships. But it still made him feel awful.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked - I just had to be check. To be sure,” she said, but she didn’t sound that sorry. “He’s my big brother and all that, but I still have to look out for him.”

“Someone should,” he said. “Family always should.”

She wanted to switch topics to anything else. “Ward said you have a brother?”

“Yeah. He’s at Columbia.”

“Business or law?”

“Law.”

“Good for him,” she said. “Where did you go?”

“Brooklyn College.”

“What did you study?”

He felt like he was being interviewed for a job. Either she didn’t know how annoying her questions were or she didn’t care. “Electrical engineering.”

“Really.”

Yes, fucking really. “I wanted to design rockets for NASA.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Because it hadn’t been that fucking easy? “Because I realized I hated working in an office. Wearing ties and filling out paperwork and there was a lot more of that than I was expecting. And I missed my family.”

“Have you ever regretted it?”

Of course he had. He had his moments of frustration working for his parents in a shop that was perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy. He didn’t have a 401k or any retirement plan. But ultimately, he was satisfied with his decisions. So he just said, “No.” The finality of it always seemed to bother people - make them question why they were questioning him and what it must feel like to have that certainty. “I like where I work, I like what I do, and I don’t have to take shit from anyone.”

Which included Joy. Technically.

“I’m happy for you,” she said.

They didn’t run into each other again.

 

5

Ward did a lot of drugs.

There had been a point in Theo’s life where he had been a wake and bake kind of guy until he started working full-time for his parents, but pills always made him nervous. You didn’t know what you were getting - or what other people were doing - with pills. Pills were silent and could be deadly. You could have a pill habit for years and no one would know. If you had a weed habit serious enough, everyone on your block would know.

Their first fight was about drugs. Theo wanted to go cold turkey to make sure that they (meaning, Ward) could, and Ward said yes at the time, then didn’t follow through.

“I didn’t say we couldn’t drink,” Theo said, which was how they negotiated a clean week where they were barely sober, but it was all booze. Booze was a different category. And Ward had really good booze. He even called restaurants asking if they would do a vegan wine pairing (they never would). So it was lots of blue label quality whiskey and some vodka and a lot of salad. Ward had gone vegetarian. Theo hadn’t asked him to do it, hadn’t even suggested it, warned him against doing it for someone else, but Ward had insisted and Theo found it adorable. It was a pretty interesting week. They went out a lot to eat because they weren’t busy doing drugs, or trying to figure out how to get drugs into places, and Ward proved that yes, he could get clean if he wanted to, and considered the matter settled.

Theo was good to his word, and when the week was up, Ward went back to doing drugs.

  


6

Ward asked him to move in with him.

It made sense, since Theo was basically there all the time and had a considerable amount of overnight stuff there. Theo had never kept so many things at a boyfriend’s place before and was so nervous about it that Ward said maybe he had trust issues, which Theo did not, thank you very much. (He actually didn’t.) So Theo did move in - sort of.

Theo had a rent-controlled apartment, so it made sense to keep paying that rent. And then there was all the mail he got there. Bills and stuff. And the fact that he had to keep food in the fridge, make it look lived in, because his parents had a key. And he did occasionally sleep there, because Ward lived further away and sometimes got these wild calls that got him out at all hours and he came home too exhausted to talk.

There were other excuses. Theo wanted to live with Ward, he really did, even if holding on to the rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan until they pried it from his cold, dead hands made complete sense, even to Ward, the millionaire. But they both knew why he couldn’t, why his life with Ward was carefully segregated from his life at work with his family. Ward knew a lot about his parents, his brother, and even some of his extended family. He knew their names, their pet peeves, maybe even their birthdays. He knew that Theo loved them, and that Ted was not what they called him, and that he had never been invited to meet them and should not ask about when that was going to happen.

This became another flashpoint for them. But the makeup sex was really great.

 

7

Theo supposed that he should have seen the writing on the wall when they stopped having the makeup sex so often after the fights, but he’d never been in love before - love that was reciprocated, anyway. Ward said he loved him, and Theo said it back, but he had come second in order because it was new to him, and he wanted it so badly that he felt like he would do anything to make this work and hold onto it forever.

Well, almost anything.

 

8

Ward threw Theo out on a Thursday. This proved very convenient. He called in drunk to work on Friday, then continued to wallow in all of the cheap, awful booze he could find - whatever could get him drunk faster was good with him - through the entire weekend. He did not vengefully turn on his Grindr account and start swiping because it made him feel like a slut, but also because he couldn’t walk straight enough to make it to a meetup point of any kind. He texted old friends, ex-flings, and a surprising amount of them got back to him, even offered to come over and talk him through this, but he said no. One of his best friends - who, years ago, had been the older boyfriend/mentor in his life, and now lived in San Francisco with his new husband - kept calling him to make sure he hadn’t died of alcohol poisoning, told him that he would find love again, that there were other gay fish in the big gay sea that was bigger than he thought, and he should get a pet - a dog, a cat, a goldfish even, anything to get his mind off things. But on second thought, he said, not the goldfish. Those things died in twenty-four hours if you didn’t invest in a massive filter system and Theo needed more than twenty-four hours worth of distraction.

This was how Theo wound up on what the internet had termed a “kill shelter” in Queens early in the morning on Monday, waiting for them to open. They didn’t call it a kill shelter, but it was one of those ones that didn’t advertise that it was a no-kill shelter, so people could put two and two together on that. He was still a little loaded - he had stopped with the cheap gin on the train out because the rocking made him feel sick. He hadn’t shaved, he probably looked drunk, and the lady was so nice to him anyway, and tried to steer him toward a sensible, well-tempered, and adorably cute kitten.

Theo was sick of cute. He was starting to hate the word. “Where’s the cat you’re going to kill next?”

She gave him a look. “That’s not exactly what we do here.”

“I’ve seen movies. Do you want to have to put it down or not?”

To her credit, she didn’t comment on his attitude. She just said that a pet was a bigger decision than people thought, and that’s why there were so many shelters in the first place. He barely nodded. He didn’t say what he wanted to say, which was that if he had to be alone in his apartment again, he might end up in a gin and vodka coma, and also not to mix gin and vodka, they didn’t go well together.

“We call her Sadie. After Sadie Hawkins, you know?”

He didn’t know. But he nodded.

“Because she’ll decide if she likes you.” She rattled on the door to the cage and the cat with a cone around her neck picked her head up, but didn’t come forward. “We think she was born feral. She’s not chipped, but not everyone chips their cats like they should. But she never had an owner.”

The shelter attendant shined the light from her phone so Theo could see Sadie’s face, which looked like someone had taken a knife to it. She had other scars, too.

“The stitches need to be pulled in a week,” she said. “We can do that for free. We can give you drops for her eye and antibiotics. She hasn’t been spayed because she’s still recovering from surgery, and we can give you a coupon for a vet near here who will do it - and you have to get it done, okay? However you feel about it, it’s the humane thing to do. People not spaying or neutering their pets are why we have shelters in the first place. I will not let you take her until you promise to do it.”

The cat hissed at the light and clawed at the cage door. She looked more interested in making them go away than escaping.

“I understand,” Theo said. The shelter worker gave him a withering glance. “I mean, yes, I will. I promise I will get her spayed. Despite what I look like right now, I am actually a responsible person.”

She looked skeptical, but this was clearly not a situation where she could afford to be that skeptical. No one else would take this cat. “We can give you some food to get started. Normally we ask that you buy your own carrying case but I can give you a spare if you don’t mind it being dented. Everything else - the bowls, the toys, the bed - that you have to get yourself.”

He shrugged. “Fine.” He looked at Sadie again. She could do a lot of glaring with one eye. “I’ll take her.”

There was a lot of paperwork to fill out. Theo didn’t read any of it and the attendant gave him a huge stack of pamphlets and said, “And promise me you won’t get her declawed. You might want to, but it’s cruel. It should be illegal. It hurts their paws. It can be a source of chronic pain and they can’t tell you that because they’re cats.”

“I promise,” he said. “I like animals. I’m a vegan.”

The attendant’s face lit up with relief. “I’ll give you some gloves, too.” She said they were technically for hawks, and Theo didn’t ask why she had them. As he watched her transport Sadie from the cage to the carrier, he understood.

 

9

The attendant - whose name was Jean - was genuinely surprised to see him again, even though he called ahead to double-check when Sadie needed her stitches out.

“I need more of the disinfectant wipes,” he announced as he put the carrier down. He was wearing the gloves. “I lost a lot of them. And, um, used some of them on myself. The internet said I could do that.”

Jean looked like she wanted to cry with joy. “How is she doing?”

“Um, she’s doing,” Theo said. “She’s stopped trying to murder me in my sleep, so that’s progress, right?”

 

10

Sadie also eventually forgave him for taking her to be spayed. Maybe. She seemed the type to hold grudges. But she also started sleeping on his head, or his face, and people said that was a good sign.

More importantly, it was very distracting, which was all he wanted in the first place.

  


Present

1

Nelson’s Meats was never going to be the most financially-stable of stores. People always needed food, but when times were tough, they ate more carbs and repackaged hot dogs. While Theo was working under his parents, it had almost gone under three times - that he knew about. So, being the sensible business owner he was, he didn’t say no to a side hustle that involved reimagining Danny Rand’s culinary life in a Buddhist cloud kingdom or whatever, but with a lot of alterations for Danny’s un-Buddhist love of meat.

That was how he ended up at the learning center of the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, taking an expensive cooking class on how to stuff momos. Initially he was unimpressed - just about every culture had figured out how to save on utensils by putting oily and squishy foods inside a pocket of dough and cooking it - but there was actually quite a bit of art to it, especially when you got technical with all of the different regional styles of shaping that dough around a lump of spiced lamb.

Danny, who was sitting next to him - he had paid for both their tickets - was a master. He could get that little circle of dough to fold in just the right way and then turn those folds into each other at a speed that rivaled the teacher. He definitely had a brighter future as a chef than a CEO, something that Theo had the good sense not to say.

“I take it you had to do a lot of this in magic Tibet?” Theo asked.

“It’s Kunlun, and you know it,” Danny said. “Just because the passage is _in_ Tibet and it _was_ magic doesn’t mean - “ He looked at Theo’s expression. “You’re messing with me.”

“A little bit.”

Danny could stop being mad in an instant. It was part of his charm. “Yes. We were monks, but we still had to eat. It was meditation.”

“I thought meditation was sitting quietly on the floor.”

“Meditation is mind training. Anything that trains your mind to focus is a meditative practice. Including making thousands of momos in perfect shape over and over again,” Danny explained as he turned yet another ball of dough into a mystic creation. He could make them look like ordinary dumplings or flowers or little boats. And he could do it without looking. Currently he was somehow fashioning one into a dragon.

“Do dragons eat dumplings?”

“Um, I don’t know what dragons eat.”

“Do they eat gold? They always seem to have a lot of gold around.”

“Shou-Lao didn’t have any gold,” Danny said. “I don’t know what it is with Western dragons and gold. Maybe because they’re all capitalist imperialists?”

“That doesn’t sound like a very Buddhist thing to say. They teach Marx in Kunlun?”

“I think I might be reading too much on Reddit.”

Theo laughed. It distracted him from the embarrassing misshapen lumps that he was making.

“I didn’t think this was fun before,” Danny said. “I should bring Ward.”

Theo looked at the table and said, “Um, please don’t.”

“What? He’s a recovering addict who needs something to do with his time. I don’t think he has a single hobby.”

“You shouldn’t just tell people that.”

“Okay, maybe he has hobbies. I just don’t know about them.”

“No! The addict thing!”

“He’s in recovery!”

“It doesn’t matter! It’s private information! What if I didn’t already know it?”

Danny shrugged. “You wouldn’t judge him. You’re not that kind of person.”

“That’s not the issue. The issue is his privacy, which you should respect.” Theo watched Danny shrivel up like he’d been hit. “But it’s okay - in this case. I already knew. So no harm done.”

“How do you know Ward?”

Man, there was no avoiding this one. “We used to, um, date.”

“What? Really? Ward’s gay?” Danny sounded like he was in high school. He shook his fist. “Wait. There’s a name for this. I have it on my phone.”

“I really hope you don’t.”

But Danny already had his phone out. “Bisexual.”

Theo clapped. “Good for you.”

“You should see the list of words I’m _not_ allowed to say,” Danny said. “So, you and Ward.”

“We used to go out. Years ago. We broke up.” And Theo could not, for the life of him, get the dough to curl into a perfect oval rather than get mashed under his thumb. “It’s over. That’s the story.”

“Awww! Why did you break up?”

“Get our phone back out and put that on the list of things you’re not allowed to say.”

“It’s more a list of words than phrases,” Danny said. “Come on. You can tell me.”

“I could, but I won’t,” Theo said. “Does this look enough like a Bhutanese-style momo to you?”

“You’re dodging the question.”

“We disagreed on things. It became a problem. You know, the normal reason people break up. And I cannot emphasize enough how none of this is any of your business.”

“Fine, fine.” Danny could take a hint. It usually wasn’t the _first_ hint, but he eventually got it. “Is that why you’re not speaking?”

“This may surprise you, but it’s not always a great idea to try to be friends with your ex. Like, maybe neither of you are into that idea. And maybe even though it’s been years and you’ve both hopefully gotten emotionally past it and moved on with your lives, it’s still a little awkward and you’d rather avoid spending a lot of time with him unless you have to.” He added, “And if he asks, when you inevitably tell him this even though you shouldn’t, no, there are no hard feelings.”

“I can keep secrets.”

Theo glared at him.

“It’s a very nice momo,” Danny said. “Very authentic.”

 

2

Fortunately for Theo, Matt liked momos, and was willing to eat the leftover platter of them when he came into the apartment, and Matt had a pretty discerning palette.

“Did Danny like them? Wasn’t that the point of this?”

“He ate like, two dozen of them, so yeah, I think so.”

“And you made it through an evening with Danny.”

“He’s not so bad,” Theo said. “He’s so ... eager to make friends. You guys should be nicer to him.”

“Did he tell you I’m not nice?”

Theo pulled him in by his jacket labels and kissed him. “I’m sure you’re very nice to him. He just gets a lot of shit for being himself. Though I did want someone to smack him for asking about Ward.”

Matt had that adorably amused expression on his face, the one where he knew he was too smart for his own good. “You wanted me to come in and do it?”

“I’m just not really the hitting type. I got cornered and was explaining to him that we don’t all like to hang out with our exes.”

“Danny doesn’t have an ex, so how would he know?”

“Exactly. You’re not worried about me cheating on you with Ward? Or Danny?”

“You wouldn’t.” Matt seemed to always know him, which could be creepy or romantic. At the moment, it was romantic. “You’re too good. None of us deserve you.”

“I’m just gonna take that as a compliment and not a red flag and move on.”

“Might be a good move,” Matt said. “Though can we stop talking about your exes for a little while?”

“Yeah,” Theo said. “That would definitely be fine.”

 

The End


End file.
